


The Pier

by marilyn4ever



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Drug Withdrawal, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, M/M, References to Depression, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27505963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marilyn4ever/pseuds/marilyn4ever
Summary: Ed's trip to the pier to throw away his pills.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	The Pier

He doesn't know how he got here. 

Staring out at the cresting waves, seagulls circle in their never ending cacophony. 

Oswald drips at his side, the stench of decay and stagnant water. A miasma around the apparition. 

He's long given up on his conviction that ghosts aren't real. 

Even without the pills, his friend persists in making an appearance. 

The stomach clenching agony and cold sweats of withdrawal, do nothing to ward the apparition away. 

He wants it to taunt him, berate him for his stupidity, his lack of awareness. 

Things that turned him into dumb, blind Ed.

Yet he stands at his side, stoic and silent. 

No harsh words or pitying looks to break their deadlock.

He forces the sentiment out, far too late and unforgiving, from the depths of his soul.

"I want you to know that our friendship meant something to me. I cared about you... and I miss you". 

It should be a cathartic release, but feelings refuse to unclamp themself loose.

Barely scratching the surface of what pains him.

The loss of a friend, a mentor, perhaps a would have been lover.

Only time will tell, but it won't. Not now, with just an hallucination left to plague him. 

When he craves a tangible presents, someone to touch, to hold. 

His own hallucination gone, now a part of himself. 

His analogy had been wrong, more worm than caterpillar. 

Eating away at him, rotten to the core.

"Gee!... Almost makes up for being dead". 

Regret resurfaces when Oswald reminds him that he's gone. 

He feels like flotsam, cast adrift, bobbing away on the releantless current. 

More half-truths fall from his frozen lips. The worm has won, or so it thinks.

"Did you really love me?".

The brush of wrinkled fingers caress his cheek.

Not real but tangible all the same. 

The look of pity, a knife in his heart. 

He swallows a sob, strangled by his own emotions.

Mourning this man or himself, too numb and brittle to decide the difference. 

"Which one of us died?".

Oswald smiles, empty and infinitely sad.

Ed needs an answer that he doesn't want. 

"You tell me?. You know the answer to that riddle, my friend".

A lone tear, cascades, following the dip and farrows of his face.

"Face the truth".

He wants to, more than anything. But it's buried too deep. 

Far easier to forget it's existance, than dig it up. One shovelful at a time. 

But it thumps and bangs persistent, on the lid of the casket in his chest. 

"I can't". 

Ed's last lament, before he lets the worm have his way.

The worm dons his hat, armor to ward off restless spirits.

Eyes turned away from the once fearsome Penguin. 

His first breath tastes like tears, his own grief hard to swallow. 

Seperate from Ed's, but it's inevitably the same. 

The Riddler smiles slow, his own warding against such crippling emotions.

That ferment and corrupt him already. Multiplying tenfold.

He refuses to look back, hoping that Oswald will follow.

Unable and unwilling to say that last goodbye.

Already hearing his uneven gate, as his spectre hastens to match his stride.

The Riddler replaced one shadow for another.

The Penguin's shade a part of him now. 

Eternal, together entwined.


End file.
